According to sociologist Cliff Hillard, "More and more, men today find themselves bombarded with un-retouched images, and with that comes the considerable mental burden of trying to reconcile what they see in these ads and magazines with their personal perceptions of beauty."
Hillard, who studies attainable ideals of female attractiveness in the media and how they can create an overly realistic sense of what women ought to look like added that "For most men, it's very discouraging. Instead of seeing only rail-thin models, they’re now exposed to accurate representations of women whose proportions mimic those of actual human females."
"Think about the average man flipping through a magazine that features pictures of women who haven’t had their cheekbones raised or their noses reshaped with Photoshop," Hillard continued. "How is he supposed to feel when he sees something like that?"
Well, to answer Hillard, I would say nothing. What would you feel? It doesn’t matter if major companies like Dove, H&M, and Ralph Lauren now use non-traditional models in their advertising campaigns. Every man has their own definition of beauty and majority of those men know who to choose between a traditional and non-traditional model. Why do you think beauty contests are still popular as ever?
I just finished getting around the office and asked ten of my male colleagues and it is clear that there is no confusion at all. Unlike what Hillard claims, regular-size models or even over-sized models are treated by men like any other advertisements featuring babies or children. They are there to give a sense of an everyday-regular-people-feel to the product and not to promote their aesthetic value, if there is any.
According to the sociologists’ research, the use of non-traditional beauties ultimately serves to make men feel upset and frustrated when the women in commercials don’t live up to their own personal fantasies. I suggest that these men should not be upset at all.
Use of average-size models is just the popular trend right now that could fade in a couple of weeks. Also, they are much cheaper compared to hiring supermodels. For companies looking to cut costs and make lots of profit in return, this is an attractive option. Besides, claiming to employ non-traditional models to promote their products could attract new customers even if those models were not really ordinary-looking.
At the end of the day, when confronted between an ordinary-looking woman who represents majority of the female population in terms of race and ethnicity and a woman who graces the cover of sports’ illustrated swimsuit edition, a man knows how many points he should give and who to give it to.
Hillard, who studies attainable ideals of female attractiveness in the media and how they can create an overly realistic sense of what women ought to look like added that "For most men, it's very discouraging. Instead of seeing only rail-thin models, they’re now exposed to accurate representations of women whose proportions mimic those of actual human females."
"Think about the average man flipping through a magazine that features pictures of women who haven’t had their cheekbones raised or their noses reshaped with Photoshop," Hillard continued. "How is he supposed to feel when he sees something like that?"
Well, to answer Hillard, I would say nothing. What would you feel? It doesn’t matter if major companies like Dove, H&M, and Ralph Lauren now use non-traditional models in their advertising campaigns. Every man has their own definition of beauty and majority of those men know who to choose between a traditional and non-traditional model. Why do you think beauty contests are still popular as ever?
I just finished getting around the office and asked ten of my male colleagues and it is clear that there is no confusion at all. Unlike what Hillard claims, regular-size models or even over-sized models are treated by men like any other advertisements featuring babies or children. They are there to give a sense of an everyday-regular-people-feel to the product and not to promote their aesthetic value, if there is any.
According to the sociologists’ research, the use of non-traditional beauties ultimately serves to make men feel upset and frustrated when the women in commercials don’t live up to their own personal fantasies. I suggest that these men should not be upset at all.
Use of average-size models is just the popular trend right now that could fade in a couple of weeks. Also, they are much cheaper compared to hiring supermodels. For companies looking to cut costs and make lots of profit in return, this is an attractive option. Besides, claiming to employ non-traditional models to promote their products could attract new customers even if those models were not really ordinary-looking.
At the end of the day, when confronted between an ordinary-looking woman who represents majority of the female population in terms of race and ethnicity and a woman who graces the cover of sports’ illustrated swimsuit edition, a man knows how many points he should give and who to give it to.